The Free-Flowing Water Spirit, Tagakau

[Chath]

Tagakau

 

WARNING, images may be LARGE.

Sorry, I didn't realize the properties of my camera until trying to post this.

Also, sorry for the bad lighting, not really good with photography.

 

 

Mythical Drake

Front View
Dorsal View
Head/Mouth Detail
Land Waddler
Walking Front View

Walking Dorsal View

 

The Tagakau, literally the Free-Flowing Water Spirit, is a generally benevolent creature, but has dangerous destructive tendencies. While in the ocean they are as graceful as can be, they occasionally harm those who get too close with their blades by just swimming near the unintentionally. Despite this, they are fairly docile herbivores, who use their bottom teeth to tear up dense vegetation to eat. These creatures are also able to survive on land, but are much more clumsy and dangerous. Their small arms unfold as their main fins fold back, and their hind fins are used to walk, but they are very unsure on land, and generally only come to land when building a nest. They use their bladed forearms to cut down branches to form the nest by sharpening the branches and sticking them around a pile of sand, outward, which would potentially impale any who try to eat their young. When they hatch, the infant Tagakaus cut their way out of the nest, flop their way to the nearest body of water, and start eating any and all vegetation in sight. The symbols on the Tagakau's fins and down their back glow, and no one really quite knows their purpose, as they don't glow with emotion or to attract mates.

 

I got the idea for the Tagakau by looking at a mythical Salamander, the fire ones with 9 limbs? I wanted to make a walking, swimming lizard creature, and so I came up with the basic design of the Tagakau without the arms. Sadly, to fill in the underbelly with armor, I had to use the remaining pieces I had, which then became the arms and blades. I prefer the Tagakau when swimming, as I assume it prefers to swim too, because it has nice little pose function. By using the tips of their blades and the bottom of their thick tail, you can set them up so it looks like they're swimming, which I thought was neat. The head isn't my best, nor are all the Hero Cores, but I wanted to fill in those Hero Chest Pieces, and justified it with the "odd glowing glyphs" trope. Overall, this isn't my favourite, but it CERTAINLY isn't my least favourite (and may it never see the light of day...)